FIRST Song Parody Contest Playlist and moving foward

[Cothron Theiss]

To be honest, I think some of the issue is a lack of promotion. I think many people have seen or heard of the FIRST Rhapsody, but other than that, the list the OP linked is the first I've seen of the official submission or repository for all of the teams' submissions. Also, what the others have said about parodies being difficult is spot on. We FIRSTers are often a diverse and talented group of people, but I doubt many teams have the resources to accomplish a quality parody.

[TheMilkman01]

Originally Posted by Greg Hainsworth

we have members who want to do this - recognition or not - because its fun for them.

If its not fun, why do it at all...

It is fun. I feel the way FIRST incorporated it, however, could have been implemented a lot better. For instance, the 3:30 time limit is practical, but it hinders creativity greatly. 3:30 is the average song length, and most songs you'd want to do a parody of IMO are slightly longer than that. Just an example, I understand their reasoning for it.

Originally Posted by jordangrant

OP, you definitely jumped the gun pulling numbers a whole 24 hours before the deadline.

Now that I've watched all the parodies, I personally think the overall quality has greatly increased from last year, and Cory's ears will be safe this year. As you guys have said, making a parody is hard, and I think teams are getting used to navigating through developing the idea, moulding the lyrics, recording properly, making a good video - and seeing great examples they can draw inspiration from.

Honestly, the girls and guys who can REALLY sing brought out their A-game this time, so I'm optimistic about the competition moving forward.

True, I did jump the gun quite a bit. The number of entries doubled overnight . While I haven't been able to watch them all yet, I'm hopeful. I do think it's indisputable, however, that majority of the FIRST population is becoming tired of parodies, and it's not something that can be sustainable in the long term.

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

To be honest, I think one of the issues is a lack of promotion. I think many people have seen or heard of the FIRST Rhapsody, but other than that, the list the OP linked is the first I've seen of the official submission or repository for all of the teams' submissions. Also, what the others have said about parodies being difficult is spot on. We FIRSTers are often a diverse and talented group of people, but I doubt many teams have the resources to accomplish a quality parody.

I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I'm fairly sure this year got fewer tweets, posts, and general promotion as last year. They rarely announce things like this at events or give any hint of its existence other than online. When it is offline, it's because the contest has already been completed. To be fair, though, it is a difficult task to promote in the offseason. Regardless, an entity as powerful as FIRST really should know how to handle promotion better.

[SpaceBiz]

1) After also having watched all of the videos, I think the overall quality went up from last year. Many teams that don't get an honorable mention this year would have easily gotten one last year. (assuming the same number of honorable mentions)

2) Our video isn't outstanding, but I had fun making it. I know everyone involved had a good time making it. We set out to make a FIRST parody music video with a video that wasn't overly cringey, and I would say we did just that. We learned a lot, and I think we can use the things we learned to make a better video next year if we so chose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgdjMcc25t4

3) I have been desensitized to cringe after watching all of last year's and this year's submissions.

4) I don’t see how teams making objectively lower quality music videos is different from teams making objectively lower quality robots. The product, the robot or in this case the video, is not what it’s about. It’s about the experience gained from trying to create the best product you can with the resources and experience you have.

HOWEVER

5) In general, these videos are a terrible way to “Make it Loud".

If a random high schooler watches a FIRST parody, what impression does it give them? What about a middle schooler? Adult?

Whatever you think the answer to that question is, I bet you would agree other types of videos do a better job of giving non-FIRST people a positive impression about FIRST. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of Making it Loud?

I think this is the main reason FIRST should consider putting a larger emphasis on promoting other team produced media instead of the music videos. Reveal vids, season recaps, weekly updates, competition videos, and more. These can more easily be done at a higher level, and they don’t almost always induce cringe.

[thedude019]

I like the concept of taking a song with a ton of words and then making it all robotics related. That's why our "We Didn't Start the Fire" parody worked out so well. But I didn't even see any form of promotion for the contest this year. We had some ideas for it being "The End of Worlds"

[Ringo5tarr]

I saw stuff like "FRC Rhapsody" and the other one, "We're gonna build a robot", which are the two that I consider actual parodies that are good, (I don't think "First can change the world" is actually parodying anything) to be good not because they advertised FIRST to the rest of the world, but it was a product of love for FIRST and all of the things that it had built up as their own inside jokes, people watch them and laugh at all the inside jokes and get sucked in by the references that are going by so fast that you con't even pick them up by the time they've past, but then the majority of parodies are A.) SLOW, allowing you to think Oh god, so much cringe. B.) not really using references, the songs ended up about being about FIRST in general, and usually in a way that doesn't let people say things like WATER GAME, and TOTES MA GOATS. C.) somehow, these people who (some of which) are going for an award that is based upon a video, don't know how to edit a video or manage audio.

If my team wasn't already making a parody, I would've tossed in my own video, it would probably be a parody of REMs "It's the end of the world as we know it" but instead we get a top cringe "Uptown Girl" parody, RIP.

[TheMilkman01]

Alright, so I'll admit: I made this post prematurely. After watching the parodies that were added in the last day I was pleasantly surprised and genuinely enjoyed some. I understand that some people really do love making parodies and have fun making them -– I'm not denying that. I generally have a blast as well. I'm making this response to essentially clear up my point: I'm not against parodies in FIRST, I'm criticizing the way FIRST implemented it. There was so much room for improvement from FIRST since last year's contest, to supply more helpful resources, to promote better, and to generally improve the experience. It seems to me that FIRST didn't promote it as much, in fact, they gave less time to complete the parody (I believe last year's due date was after Thanksgiving), and left most of the responsibility to the teams. Granted, FIRST has every right to do that. I just disagree, and at the end of my original post, left some ideas to throw around about how improvements could be made, and highly encourage everyone to consider that too. FIRST media is so much more than parodies, and if we do every year in the future, it will get stale. Even if contests were every other year, with parodies being one year, and another different contest the next, then back to parodies, I believe that would be a better model to implement than having yet another parody contest next year.

All this being said, I support every single team or individual who submitted these past two years. It's not easy, I'm proud of you all for getting involved, and I'm sure we all gained some invaluable experience in the process. No one who participated should regret that decision.

[bobbysq]

Originally Posted by Ringo5tarr

B.) not really using references, the songs ended up about being about FIRST in general, and usually in a way that doesn't let people say things like WATER GAME, and TOTES MA GOATS.

We should make our own FRC parody album based on a bunch of CD memes and general FRC satire. Chief Delphi The Musical?

[Ringo5tarr]

Originally Posted by bobbysq

We should make our own FRC parody album based on a bunch of CD memes and general FRC satire. Chief Delphi The Musical?

ROCK OPERA

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by bobbysq

We should make our own FRC parody album based on a bunch of /r/frc memes and general FRC satire. /r/frc The Musical?

FTFY